Blackpaint 513 – My Show and the Slade’s, Patti, Andrei and the Fonz

Slade MA/MFA Interim Show, UCL

A futuristic cityscape, made out of dark wood with the odd chair or table leg showing; aprons and other garments (see below) hanging on pegs over women’s shoes; “jewel/gold” encrusted domestic articles, kettles etc.; a plate of sliced toast with a plastic container of jam in a darkened room; huge old black steam locos fuming away on a video in another darkened room; a vertical cigar smouldering on video (towering inferno, 9/11) – and some paintings, in those bright, dry colours (Sillman, Oehlen, German sort of thing. Flat, thin paint, fashionable lack of texture. Examples below:

Alexander Page

Luxin Su

Tae Yeon Kim

Olivia Bax

I hope I haven’t misidentified any of these artists; why don’t the students put BIG name cards up next to the work, instead of leaving little stacks of cards in the corner?

Open House Wandsworth

All my paintings and those of my partner Marion Jones on show and for sale at absurdly low prices, Saturday and Sunday 16th and 17th October, 11.00am – 6.00pm at 84 Ribblesdale Road London SW16 6SE, including those below:

Megiddo – Actually, this one’s gone.

Red and Blue Lines on Ochre

Seagulls over Sorrento

Geometry 1

Asger’s Revenge

Woodpecker

Blue Crouch

Water Engine 2

Standing Nude

Islares

Redleg

Wild Tales, dir. Damian Szifron (2014)

Spanish/Argentinian. A portmanteau film, six stories about revenge, rage, duplicity, infidelity. The first story was a real shock because of a horrible echo of the Germanwings murders. Other echoes, for elderly filmgoers: Duel, Marathon Man, Carrie, Short Cuts (marginal, but that chef looks just like Lyle Lovett in the cake story).

Just Kids, Patti Smith

I bought Smith’s book about herself and Robert Mapplethorpe after finishing Viv Albertine’s great autobiography – I sort of thought they might be similar; outspoken, opinionated, edgy, gritty… Wrong, so far. Smith writes in a rather stilted style by today’s standards – she writes, for instance, about “garments”, not clothes. At times, she reads more like Jane Austen than, say, Lou Reed. Consider this passage: “I had not yet comprehended that Robert’s conflicted behavior related to his sexuality. I knew he deeply cared for me, but it occurred to me that he had tired of me physically. In some ways I felt betrayed, but in reality it was I who had betrayed him.”

OK, Austen probably wouldn’t have mentioned sexuality. This shouldn’t put you off, by the way; her portrait of counter culture in 60s US is fascinating. The other night on TV, I happened on one of those gruesome tribute concerts, where a big star sits in the audience while other stars sing to him/her; it was Springsteen’s turn and Patti was singing the great “Because the Night”; “..Because the night belongs to lovers, because the night belongs to – (smile, gesture) – BRUCE!” Sometimes, nothing is more destructive than age and success. Patti looking a lot like Henry Winkler these days, I think.

Andrei Rublev, Tarkovsky

Just finished watching this masterpiece again and it struck me that Boris the boy bellmaker is the counterpart of a Young Communist zealot, cajoling, threatening, forcing the doubting workforce to perform the impossible, in the face of terrible obstacles. Violence, bullying, sternness, squalor, the interspersion of sentimentality with horrible cruelty (eyes put out) – all the common features of Russian literature and cinema (Karamazov, for instance). And unforgettable images, of course.